Fifteen Seconds
by cellotlix
Summary: And in these last gasping seconds of conscious life, Shepard lives a lifetime; one she might have had, if things were different. Vignettes on the end.


_"In the event of decompression and/or evacuation into space without proper protective measures, the human body is subjected to four separate processes: ebullism, hypoxia, hypocapnia, and decompression sickness. However, it is agreed that hypoxia, while not the most severe, is the most significant. The victim will lose consciousness in fifteen seconds, and if not recovered and repressurized within ninety seconds, death is unavoidable."_

Below her is a conflagration. Silent, though blooming like a garden under her feet. She sees the billowing oranges and reds splashed against the swallowing dark of the vacuum, and for one brief moment, she thinks that she'll make it out of this alive; that once again, she'll have one hell of a story slung on her back - a mark of survival, a notch on that belt.

Then - the notion shatters. Something bursts at her back, and she knows immediately that the seals have broken. She's leaking oxygen into the void.

She flails, struggling to gain purchase though she knows there is none. Yet already it's hard to breathe. Already, she feels as if there is a dagger in her ribs, cutting the breath out of her lungs, the life out of her lips.

And in these last gasping seconds of conscious life, she lives a lifetime; one she might have had, if things were different.

* * *

-one-

She is four, watching her mother working at her desk. Hannah Shepard sits perfectly straight, as if instead of a spine, she possesses a steel rod on which her entire body is stacked, like orderly blocks of clay. Her wrists are graceful, with a smattering of faded freckles decorating the space between her third and fourth fingers. She's undone the knot at the nape of her neck, and her long red hair cascades down her back.

Shepard reaches for it, fisting it in her tiny hands. But even when she yanks too hard, her mother doesn't cry out. She only speaks in a calm, placid voice: "What is it, little bean?"

"I'm lonely," Shepard says, her voice trembling higher with the depth of what she feels and the frustration that she can't articulate it better.

Her mother says nothing, and for a moment Shepard feels like she will cry. But then Hannah turns around and folds Shepard onto her lap, tucking her chin over Shepard's head. And though she resumes her work, Shepard does not feel alone, not any more. She watches her mother work within the tight sphere of her warmth and love. She is safe.

* * *

-two-

She is seven, watching a boy her age careen up and down the halls of her mother's ship. She disproves of the noise he's making, and the fact that he can't seem to go anywhere without touching something he shouldn't be.

"Come on, Sam," he says, turning to her and grinning hugely. "Do a cartwheel."

She crosses her skinny arms over her chest. "No."

"Come on. You chicken?"

"No. Cartwheels are stupid. And so are you."

His grin becomes insolent. With perfect form, he cartwheels through the hall, head over feet, over and over, so many times that watching him makes her dizzy. She's so entranced that she doesn't notice that he's drawing dangerously close to a row of lockers. When he crashes into them, it's a surprise to them both.

He collapses into a graceless heap, looking up at her with such a shocked expression that she feels guilty enough to swallow her own tongue. "You didn't say anything!" he accuses; the tone of the sweetly betrayed.

"I didn't see!"

He doesn't believe her. It's only after he leaves with his own parents - the pair of engineers that had come to take a look at her ship - that she learns his name is Lee. And she grieves. If she hadn't been so stubborn or mean, perhaps she could have made a friend her own age.

The loss of the possibility of him is enough to throw her into a fit of melancholy for weeks.

* * *

-three-

"That's the shittiest warp I've ever seen from a recruit," the instructor shouts at her. "Put a bit more effort, and you'll be able to ruffle the hair of a goddamn baby."

"Yes, sir," she mutters.

"This ain't summer camp, princess! Maybe your military mommy gets you special consideration on her ship, but here every breath you take needs to make me happy, and let me tell you - I am not happy!"

"Yes, sir," she said, this time from between her teeth. She thinks she'd like to rip the Ascension Project patch off his chest and stuff it down his throat.

"Now, let's see it again, and maybe this time concentrate. You're not going to be doing tricks at a party with these things. They are not toys. And no one's going to be impressed when you can't even pull of a goddamn warp!"

She feels like her blood is boiling in her veins, buzzing in her ears, and she'd like to scream at this jackass until his own ears bleed. Instead, she hurls a warp so powerful that when it strikes the dummy, it shatters it like glass.

"That's more like it," the instructor says, and he pats her on the back. And though a second ago she was mad enough to smear him on the walls, she's pleased that she managed to impress him. It doesn't occur to her to boast or be proud, but at that moment she is addicted to a sense of a mission accomplished; the strikethrough of an entry on a list.

* * *

-four-

"You sure you want to do this?" Lee whispers.

"Shut up; they'll hear you," Shepard hisses back.

A pair of footsteps passes on the other side of the door, and together they hold their breath until she can't hear them anymore. But when it's quiet again, Lee's looking at her like he isn't quite sure what to do with himself, as if she's grown another head in the span of a few seconds.

So she helps him along. She takes his hand and guides it, traces the burgeoning curves, the soft weight of her breast. She hears his breath catch, and then there is no need to guide him any longer.

* * *

-five-

How old is she now, in this spinning reel of memories? Twenty-two. Not old enough for what she saw, what she did. No one is ever old enough for death.

There is the smell of fire; an acrid stench that burns her nostrils. Martinez isn't moving, and she sees a trickle of blood that seems to split his face in two. She would have cried, if she still remembered how to cry. They were the only two left.

She is alone.

Her arm is broken, and a barrage of missiles from a few hours ago melted the left side of her armor into a useless slag, some of it burned into her flesh. They'll have to cut it off her later. That's assuming there will even be a later for her.

And she assumes nothing anymore. This was supposed to be a quiet, peaceful place. Just a routine mission. Funny about those.

She conjures a singularity with every bit of fire and fury she possesses, screaming louder than the sound her gun, the onslaught of covering fire. There are more batarians coming, but she won't relinquish any more ground. Not as long as she's breathing. She refuses to even promise herself that she'll die trying.

She won't die today.

* * *

-six-

_(hold your breath, goddammit – cover the seals, save the oxygen-)_

Hackett pins the Star of Terra to her chest. She stammers a shoddy approximation of an acceptance speech into the mic. It's difficult, in those first days, not to think of exactly how things went wrong, and how paradoxical it is that she should be rewarded for surviving her failure.

Before she shuffles offstage, he rests his hand gently on her shoulder, and for a moment she fears that she will finally break; not from battle or stress, but from something as innocuous as wordless comfort and care. Instead, she swallows and nods before making a hasty retreat.

* * *

-seven-

_(-harder to breathe, harder to think, stretching, straining, gasping -)_

This first memory of Kaidan is one of her favorites. (Though, upon more consideration she decides that all of them are her favorite. He's her favorite.) He's almost criminally handsome, yet he looks at her with surprise and awe, as if he can't quite believe she is real. She doesn't feel real, at that moment in time - the first time they saw one another.

It's more significant now than it was at the moment, because she knows what happens after. Every word, every kiss, every second spent in his arms, tracing the angle of his nose, his lips, his -

"Welcome aboard the Normandy, Commander," he says smartly, performing a rigid salute.

"Thank you. Your name is . . . ?" she prompts.

"Lieutenant Alenko, ma'am."

He's so stuffy! So buttoned up, exacting; a walking set of hospital corners. Yet, she likes him immediately, because there is the possibility of a smile beneath that rigid exterior, and she has a feeling about it. "Do you have a first name, Lieutenant?"

He flushes slightly. "Ah - it's Kaidan, ma'am."

Long after the moment passes, she savors the feel of his name on her tongue, the cadence of it.

* * *

-eight-

_(choking, screaming without words. blood vessels shattering like glass -)_

There was that one time at Flux. Ashley had dressed her up like a Thanksgiving turkey, painted her lips red as her hair, swept it up so that the long column of her neck was exposed.

"There," she says with relish when she's finished. "You look gorgeous."

"I look like a clown."

"Shepard? I say this with all the love and respect possible; shut up."

"Yes, ma'am," she says, making her voice snap with mockery.

Shepard remembers thinking she'd rather be in her cabin than dancing. She lacks any discernible sense of rhythm when it comes to music, and the thought of making a fool of herself in front of a thousand watching eyes brings back uncomfortable memories of the Star of Terra, the way the words felt thick as cotton on her tongue.

So she stakes out at the bar the entire night, and it's there that she watches him. Ashley dragged him here too, and he looks like he's trying not to show everyone how miserable he really is. He smiles and nods when addressed, but as soon as people turn away, he winces, and she knows that the pulsing music and flashing lights are probably triggering a migraine.

"Want to get out of here?" she asks him.

For a moment, she's afraid he'll say no. Things have been strange - they're both in that weird, awkward phase where they know exactly what the other one wants and needs, both angling for a graceful position around the nearly physical presence the regs pose in their lives. But -finally, amazingly - he nods, and she feels like she for the first time in many years, she can breathe.

As they leave, his hand brushes her elbow.

* * *

-nine-

_(her eyes pop, and she hears it as an echo, rattling in her desperate skull)_

She thinks of Ashley. She thinks of the last time she saw her; pinned up, smiling a little, but still with a sadness in her eyes so large that Shepard hadn't known what to do with it, what to say. It was worry, perhaps; melancholy. Maybe even fear, as difficult as that is to imagine.

"You know it's the right choice, LT," she hisses in the comm, her voice bending, breaking.

Maybe she knew, that last time on the beach. The three of them, making identical footprints in the sand. Two pairs go one direction, the other stays behind.

* * *

-ten-

_(it is odd that she can hear in the vacuum of space, where there is supposed to be no sound. yet the sound of her heart beating frantically against the walls of her chest strikes her as especially loud. but already, she is detached from it.)_

She imagined what it would be like to make love with Kaidan a thousand times. Perhaps two thousand. She would dream of the way his hands would feel as they trailed up her skin, as they savored, sampled, thrilled. She thought of his lips, and what it would be like to kiss him. What it would be like to be possessed by him, and possess in equal right.

Her fantasies pale in comparison.

There is something beautiful about the solid feel of him compared to the phantom conjured by her unmet desire. When he runs his hand up the muscles of her belly, the curve of her breast, she feels the heat in those hands, the strength and vitality of them. She's seen those hands shape a singularity more powerful than she can muster and aim a pistol with pinpoint precision. She's seen those hands hurt and heal. But all said she prefers this use to the rest, because it is hers to keep.

"Sam," he breathes, and the feel of those words on her neck sends a thrill down her spine. She curls into him, and it is as if they were made for this purpose alone.

* * *

-eleven -

_(if there was a wall to beat on, she would - desperately, furiously, though without sound. There is no sound in the vacuum. No one hears you scream in the void-)_

She thinks of the first day in Chicago. Naked, spent. He's curled in bed with a migraine so bad that it has him running to the toilet every few minutes, where she hears him retching hard enough to choke. Yet she can tell that he feels monstrously guilty, as if he is ruining her vacation by having the audacity to be sick.

Instead, she comforts him. She presses a cold pack to his head and makes the room dark, so not even a scrap of light comes through. And after a few hours, he calms. He recovers.

Later, he winds a strand of her hair around his finger, shaking it out and beginning again. Even when so miserable he could hardly see straight, he is unwilling to let go of her, to let even a minute go by without touching.

"Enjoying yourself?" she teases.

"Yes," he says, and she is surprised by the sincerity of his answer.

* * *

-twelve-

_(Kaidan, oh Kaidan -)_

There is first time he tells her he loves her. For all his talk of always leaving a way out, he says it first. He takes her hands in his, looks her deep in the eye, and says he loves her as if he is the first man ever to admit love.

Perhaps there is truth there. He's the only man whose love she ever wanted.

* * *

-thirteen-

_(not today, goddammit, not today. not yet, not today, not when -)_

There is the first time she tells him she loves him. Cheek to cheek in a dingy jazz club, one hand at her waist. She thinks almost that she can feel his heart beating through every bold place on his body, so carefully entwined with hers. And she'd been keeping those words to herself even now, in this sacred place; hoarding them out of fear. But in the storied haze of that club, she finds that she is free of that fear that has hounded her all these years.

As if she has changed - some kind of alchemy. Something gained, something blended and made stronger by the act.

She remembers most clearly the way he kissed her almost as soon as the words have left her mouth, one hand cupping her cheek.

* * *

-fourteen -

_(the struggle is quieter now. there is a haze in her thoughts, as if she searches for them behind a veil of smoke, and she cannot break through, not even for -)_

The reel is faster now, spinning faster and faster until only a blur remains. She sees a litany of faces of those who had gone before - her mother, Ashley, Martinez, every other soldier that died under her command. And she thinks to ask them how it feels - as if she lacks the ability to decide that for herself, being struck squarely in the middle of such a similar situation.

Was it like this for Hannah Shepard? Was she blasted into bits by the slavers, or was she alive when the ship broke apart and vented its crew into the void? Did she die in the same way, with her eyes wrenched wide, the weaker blood vessels destroyed by the pressure, the onset of hypoxia, ebullism, a thousand other technical terms that have no place in the act of dying this way.

Did they find her floating in the vacuum, frozen solid, a hunk of wasted rock more than a woman who laughed and loved and breathed?

* * *

-fifteen -

_(no no no no no no no)_

In this last second before she succumbs, she lives for a thousand years.

She sees everything that was, and everything that would have been. There is a wedding, and then the slow swell of life beneath her breast, two pairs of hands on that supple curve; one pale, one gold. There is a family of three in a hospital bed - the woman holds the child, and the man holds her; intricately wound like coils within coils.

There are a thousand fights, a thousand tears. There are a thousand thousand nights curled in his arms, wrapped securely in his embrace. There is a ship she calls home, and then a home after. There are more children, and then their children. There are the slow days of age, stretching onward like the infinite, reaching horizon. There is a sunset on Vancouver Bay.

There is a smile that lights the room. A pair of hands powerful and gentle and tender. There is integrity and kindness, honor and love, and a sweetness she had not thought could exist in a person. There is skill and power there, too; though never used in anger or haste. There is the crushing, encompassing depth of what she found with him, and her inability to articulate it properly.

There is grief, at being forced apart. There is sorrow. There is Kaidan, Kaidan, Kaidan – a thousand times, though she mouths his name wordlessly she will scream it from the nothingness, and this will be the sound that is heard in the void – the exception to the hard fast rule, the triumph -

_(there is nothing)._


End file.
